Phoenix Fire's March 2026 study in Prehospital Emergency Care evaluated their prehospital cold water immersion protocol across 183 heat stroke patients — and quietly buried the load-and-go dogma civilian EMS has run on for two decades. What the data says, why your cooling rate is the only variable that matters, and what to put on your rig before the next heat wave.

It’s 1430 hours when your crew is dispatched to a construction site for a worker who “passed out.”